I signed up for the Disneyland 5k back in the winter time and knew it was a long ways away but kept up all summer going for 2 and 3 mile runs even during the weekdays. I couldn’t seem to get past running a 9:30 mile, and really tried to get it closer to a nine minute mile to beat my personal record (PR). Going into race day i was faced with a dilemma of racing by myself or walking with Joy since she’s pregnant, and my sister still sore from her minor surgery the week before. I planned on walking part of the race with them and running the last two miles.

Race morning I woke up at 3:30am to get ready and drive to Cerritos to pick up my sister, and get to Disneyland by 5:00am for our lineup. While waiting for our corral to be released i was still figuring out what to do, but once we were off, i said screw it and decided to walk the course too. I didn’t want to be left out of all the pictures i knew were going to be taken, but it was really hard not to just start jogging with so many other people really running. The other thing that made me feel better was that we weren’t given a timing chip so everything was basically off the record since it was just a “fun run.”

The course layout was entirely inside the ground of Disneyland, California Adventures, and Downtown Disney, and the first time we ran through, Joy was going as fast as possible, but this year we took our time and even back tracked a few times to get another picture. The course started off by going down Disney way that led to the back of DCA and we entered right next to Cars Land.

We stopped along with a bunch of other people to snap a shot in front of Radiator Springs Racers.

Then a stop in front of the the World of Color fountains. Where we almost didn’t get this shot because we had a cast member try 4 times and didn’t even take one picture. Thankfully we checked and got another runner to take an actual picture.

Then it was off to Disneyland where we circled the castle through Fantasyland, and Frontierland where we found Chip and Dale. Finally the home stretch had us run through Critter Country and out the back to head back towards Downtown Disney.

I had plenty of energy so i did a lot of slow motion running next to Joy, and some running forward and circling back to Joy to get my kicks in, but when we finally crossed the finish line my overall time for the 3.1 miles was slower than what it took me to run my 10k (6.2 miles) back in February with a time of 1:04:11.

Six years ago when i first met Joy, i somehow convinced her to run a half marathon with me even though neither one of us had run more than a 5k before. It was early on in our dating timeline and i had some reservation about asking a girl i basically had just met to a date seven months into the future, but something inside told me just go for it. Looking back I think training together for the half-marathon was something that we really bonded over time with and got us to where we are now.

This year knowing that we were trying to get pregnant we only signed up to do the 5k instead of the halfathon, and it worked out well since of course Joy did get knocked up and wouldn’t have been able to do it. My sister joined us as well as she missed out on our half marathon for reasons i forget now.

Friday we went to the Health & Fitness Expo to pick up our bibs and t-shirts. I was disappointed that the 5k only got a hanes t-shirt, while all the other ones got an annual tech shirt, because this weekend ended up being so humid even in the morning. The cool thing about this year’s race was that it was Alice and Wonderland themed so it seemed so appropriate since we’re naming our daughter Alice as well.

I was hoping to pick up a new hat but unfortunately i’m not a fan of most running caps because they’re always so flimsy and thats all they had. After we picked up everything we headed out to Downtown Disney to have dinner with the cousins who drove up to meet up with us.

Without motivation i’m just a lump on the couch. I decided early in the year that i was going to run a 5k and a 10k and some how ended up skipping the 5k and going straight to the Redondo Beach Superbowl 10k. With only a month to train i was pretty hesitant after i sent in my money but its been a decent amount of time to train. Last night we did probably our longest mid-week run and went 4 straight miles in about 40 minutes. Thats probably the longest run i’ll do before next week’s race but i feel pretty confident as long as it doesn’t rain.

Incidentally this week I got an e-mail from Disney stating that for the Labor Day Weekend Halfathon, they also added a 10k and 5k to the list of available runs. When i ran the Halfathon six years ago, the best part of the race was the first three miles where we got to run through the park before heading out to Anaheim, so i figured we get the best part of the race without all the fluff at the end. Nina also signed up for the 5k and the Diaper Dash for crawlers for Kaylee. It should be a fun weekend.